Obama's Amnesty and the Impact on Jobs

November 21, 2014

The Obama administration's amnesty plan will give 5 million illegal immigrants work permits. According to Neil Munro at the Daily Caller, 4 million illegals who have been in the country for five years are eligible to apply for the permits, and another 1 million will be exempted from deportation in other ways.

If one adds those permits, reports Munro, to the other 1 million permits that the administration has previously given out, it will equal 6 million -- the same number as the number of jobs that the economy has added since the president took office in 2009.

What does this mean for jobs and the economy? Munro notes that American wages have stagnated since 2000 due to a surplus of people seeking jobs. How many people are entering the job market every year?

The United States accepts 1 million new, legal immigrants every year. Over the last 5 years, 3.5 million have been of working-age.

Currently, 9 million Americans are unemployed, while 7 million have given up looking for employment.

The number of native-born Americans with jobs has flat-lined since 2000.

According to Munro, some of the 5 million who will receive work permits are already working cash jobs or under false identities, but he says the newly permitted will compete with blue-collar workers and job seekers who were legally in the job market.